Specifically,
I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. There are
some exceptions to what I'm about to say but I've, essentially, played
every game in both franchises during the past two years. I thought I'd
reflect on each game I played.
The game that started it all, for me at least. I know there are earlier horror games out there but this was where I began my journey and it was an excellent entry point. So many quirks of the genre were established here, from point-and-click-esque puzzles to the tank controls and fixed camera, it felt cool to play something that felt foundational even as I worked through it.
I don't know that I have much to say about this sequel here other than that it was a better, more polished take on what the first game was doing. The voice acting was better, the gameplay felt ever so slightly less stiff, and they fleshed out the idea of doing multiple playthroughs. There were two playable characters, again, but each had a full-fledged campaign that complemented the other. The series never quite does this to this extent again, so what this one pulls off is still impressive to me. This is definitely one of the highlights of the series.
This was when I made my decision to play the two franchises side-by-side and in hindsight I'm glad I did. It was fascinating to watch both evolve from relatively similar starting points into their own distinct things. As for this game specifically, I still love it. The voice acting is stilted but in a way that feels deliberate, the visuals are full of that PSOne shimmer, and the vibes are immaculate. While I appreciate the depth of later entries, there's something about the sheer inscrutability of Harry's situation that I adored. This is a man who, through circumstance, is trapped in a town that simply wants him dead, and I like how straightforward the general brunt of the narrative is, cult and Alessa and God(!) notwithstanding.
After a brief detour to play through most of the Half-Life games, I continued my journey with this one. It was the first time I'd felt disappointed with one of these games as I felt it failed to live up to the lofty expectations I had after playing Resident Evil 2. It only has a single protagonist and, while it does have a system for making choices, there just wasn't as much variety as the previous entry and I found that underwhelming. Still, Nemesis is a cool villain and he laid the groundwork for some really cool mechanics in future games so it's not something I regret playing.
After another brief detour to play through most of the Dead Space games, I moved onto the first spinoff of many. This was an arcade-y PSOne lightgun shooter and while I try to play on original hardware as much as possible, I played this via an emulator because I could use my mouse to simulate a lightgun. It's fairly short and it's not incredible, but it has an original, if cliched, story and it has branching paths that make replays at least somewhat worthwhile. All in all, it wasn't a bad time.
This entry doesn't get talked about as much as most of the others and I feel that's in large part due to the name. This is the fourth major Resident Evil game but it doesn't get the love, or the remake treatment it would seem, that's been given to the other games in the series. That's a long way of saying this is a solid entry in the series that finds a new way to do multiple protagonists and which further develops characters and relationships from earlier games. It has its flaws, such as the maybe transphobia around the villain and the character Steve is... a lot, but it's also got some solid gameplay and some memorable encounters.
Unlike the first Survivor, this was an adaptation of an existing RE game, that being Code Veronica. Because of that I feel it's not as impressive as the first, but the gameplay is decent enough and it's also not incredibly long. The story is a very loose adaptation of its source material as the dialogue and events are somewhat nonsensical at times, though the environments and enemies are at least largely familiar. It's not a bad game but it has a lot of flaws so I mostly just wanted it to be over by the time I was done. I also emulated this one, for a similar reason to the first Survivor.
This is the biggie, Silent Hill 2. While I love the original and at times am not sure what my favorite in the series is, it's hard to deny the impact that this second entry had. Its story is a more nuanced one than the first, by following a troubled man and his interactions with other visitors to Silent Hill. The eeriness of the town in many ways reflects the mental states of its characters, and with that there's simply so much more to unpack and pick away at with this game than its predecessor. It's a meaty story with strong characters and, after having played the remake, I can say that this game still holds up to this day.
One final note, if you're playing this I'd highly recommend seeking out a release that has "Born From a Wish" as I feel that fleshes out Maria's character in an interesting way.
I emulated this, but only because I wasn't about to shell out $100 for a copy on eBay and I'm not sure if I even have a way to play GBC carts right now. Regardless, this game was surprisingly great. I can't say I had high expectations for it but it was able to adapt the Resident Evil formula to a handheld very well and the fact it's split between what is essentially an exploration mode and a combat mode meant they could copy the ebb and flow of the games as well. The story's non-canon but I'd recommend giving this a shot, I feel it's pretty under-the-radar as far as Resident Evil games go.
It is the first of three spinoffs set on a cruise ship.
This was the first remake of many and it was excellent. It takes the already strong foundation of the original Resident Evil and enhances and updates things significantly, despite the relatively small amount of time between releases. Crimson Heads are an interesting, if sometimes frustrating, addition and the addition of free movement helped resolve some of the awkwardness inherent to tank controls without fully removing them. I loved this game.
A prequel to the REmake, this game had some interesting ideas. It removes the item storage chest in favor of items you can drop and which stay in the environment, and while shuffling things around quickly becomes tedious it's a novel idea and I'm glad they tried it. The story's sort of forgettable and I'm still not sure why this needed to be about Rebecca, but it's a solid game overall.
Despite the change in name, this was a successor of sorts to the earlier Survivor games. Like the other lightgun games before it it isn't incredibly long, but this is less arcade-y than the earlier ones and is instead more like a standard Resident Evil game, with a focus on a single player campaign and some exploration. It's not bad, but it definitely feels lesser than the mainline Resident Evil games.
This was the second Resident Evil spinoff set on a cruise ship.
With this game, they essentially made a sequel to Silent Hill 1 that looks and plays like Silent Hill 2. It's an interesting way to continue the series and, as a huge fan of the first game, I thought this story was incredibly compelling. To make things even better, Heather is maybe my favorite survival-horror protagonist I've come across because her personality shines through her comments and actions. This might not be as "deep" as Silent Hill 2, but I greatly enjoyed this and think it's yet another contender for the best Silent Hill game.
Another spinoff, this one centers around a bunch of ordinary people caught in the middle of Raccoon City as the events of RE2 and RE3 happen. Its story is relatively simple and forgettable, but the gameplay and premise are strong enough that it's well worth playing. You select a character to play as and, throughout the various levels, you'll run into the other potential characters who are each moving through the level on their own. It gives the impression these are other people trying to make sense of the environment and trying to solve its puzzles, it's very cool. This game did have multiplayer, but I played it by myself and had a good time despite the often awkward AI.
While there are some thematic similarities to Silent Hill 2 in here, this is largely its own thing. It's comprised of a first-person hub area and your standard third-person exploration and combat, and between the two modes it's got some very strong horror elements. There are "hauntings" that can happen in the titular room that are eerie and unpleasant, and the rest of the game is about what you'd expect from another Silent Hill game. It plays pretty differently to previous games but it's well-done and it's able to stand on its own. The last of the four Team Silent entries, this one is also absolutely worth playing.
This is essentially just more of the first Outbreak, but as I enjoyed that game I was happy to play it. It has new environments and some new enemies, but is largely just a refined version of the game that came before so I don't know that I have all that much more to say about it. It's good, and even though I played both of these games solo I'd be interested in seeing how they play with other people, as the AI can be questionable at times.
This game is a marvel. It's pretty substantially different from the earlier entries because it takes the franchise into more of an action direction without any real backtracking and exploration but its pacing is immaculate. If it wasn't obvious, this might be my favorite game in the whole series. It's revolutionary and incredibly influential; you can feel its DNA in things like Uncharted, but what makes it so noteworthy is that it's still a blast to play, even to this day. I've since played the remake and I think I prefer this, it's just that good.
The first non-Team Silent entry, it's definitely a step down. This isn't bad, but it's significantly shorter and it feels like it's largely retreading familiar ground. It's novel in that you can freely move between the Otherworld and the "real" world, but with that you lose some of the mystique that came with the other games shifting on their own. It's a prequel to the first Silent Hill and it fleshes out the story of Alessa a bit, but it's, as I mentioned, just not as strong or memorable as earlier entries.
Yet another Resident Evil lightgun game, this is more fully fleshed out than earlier games and is a lot of fun. Perhaps I enjoyed it more because I played it with a PS Move controller rather than a Dualshock, but its take on an arcade shooter worked better for me than either Survivor game's. It has you run through events from earlier Resident Evil games while also having a few original sequences, and overall it was just a pretty good time.
Another spinoff, this was a PS3 game that, even just a few months after the fact, I honestly don't have too many strong memories of. It was fine? It's one of the weakest entries in the series and doesn't really do anything revolutionary, but I suppose it's Silent Hill enough and the combat is alright. I wish I could say more about it but it's just not a very memorable game.
This game was a blast in co-op. It's essentially a multiplayer take on Resident Evil 4, with a lot of the same mechanics and a similar progression only now with two people running through the environments. The game has its issues and there are some problematic elements to its setting, but it's a lot of fun to play and that is, ultimately, what matters most. It's a great action game and it successfully translates a single-player franchise to a co-op one.
This is essentially a followup to The Umbrella Chronicles and as such it also revisits events from earlier Resident Evil games. This one focuses on Leon and Claire, with an additional added story about Leon and Krauser prior to the events of RE4. It's structured more like a traditional campaign than The Umbrella Chronicles, and I think I liked that approach more. All in all it's another solid lightgun shooter that's fun to play and worth seeking out.
This is an odd game. It's sort of a remake of Silent Hill 1 in the sense that it revisits the characters and events of that game but it does so through a warped lens that skews everything. It has the same bullet points and covers the same broad strokes, but it's a new game that tells the same general story of Harry Mason trying to find his missing daughter after a car crash in Silent Hill. The aesthetics are different as well, with an icy storm encompassing everything instead of the other games' rust and machinery. This game eschews combat for some chase sequences that, while awkward, give the game a different feel to others in the series. This is one of the more interesting Silent Hill followups to me if only for its unique approach.
This is a spinoff that feels like a successor to RE5 in a lot of ways. It follows a few sets of two characters as they deal with the aftermath of an event far worse than Raccoon City. It's... almost comical that the death-lasering of Terragrigia just kind of happens in the intro to this game, but the rest of the story is pretty generic and forgettable. The game itself was fun to play, as it plays like how I imagine RE5 would have played had I played that solo, and I enjoyed my time with it.
This was the third Resident Evil spinoff set on a cruise ship.
I liked this game a lot more than I thought I would. It's another spinoff not developed by Team Silent, but it's the first of them that feels like a true followup to what those games were doing. The performance is rough, I played this on my PS3, but it's an attempt at an open-ish world Silent Hill game and I really enjoyed what I played. There are multiple endings and the story is compelling enough, in a lot of ways this feels like the earlier Silent Hill games despite its flaws. This one's worth seeking out.
Yet another Resident Evil spinoff about Raccoon City, this is their take on a tactical military shooter. It puts you in the shoes of an Umbrella agent during the events of RE2 and RE3 and has you visit familiar locations from those games. It's competently made, but none of the events or characters are particularly memorable. It has two campaigns so there's a decent amount of content to it, but it's kind of just a generic shooter with some Resident Evil aesthetics. I didn't hate it.
I went into this game with pretty low expectations given its reputation and I came away extremely impressed. This is an ambitious game, with four campaigns all criss-crossing to tell a complete story. The gunplay and combat feel like an evolution of what RE4 and RE5 were doing, and while the story is a bit nonsensical at times it's a fun ride that was made even better when played in co-op. I really enjoyed this.
This game is a weird one. WayForward made a Silent Hill dungeon crawler exclusively for the PS Vita. The
combat is fine, the aesthetics are Silent Hill enough, and it's got the
sound effects, but I just don't know why this game exists. It's totally playable and doesn't have any major issues, but it's all just so dull. It's an odd fit for the series and after a series of spinoffs and sequels that failed to fully live up to their predecessors, the release of this meant the Silent Hill series essentially ended with a whimper.
I suppose there was one other Silent Hill game after that, though calling this a game is a bit of a misnomer. P.T. was a teaser for an unreleased sequel that, despite its short runtime, wound up being one of the stronger entries in the series. It's mostly just a series of hallways you walk through with very little interactivity but the atmosphere is incredible and it made me deeply uncomfortable. This is a fantastic horror game that's sadly only available to a select few people who downloaded it on the PS4 before it got delisted. That's a true shame, as it managed to inspire dozens of indie games and, in my opinion, feels like the impetus for Resident Evil's future shift to first-person.
I adored this game. Mechanically it's pretty similar to the first Revelations, with a single-player take on RE5's co-op campaign, but as this game lets you swap between unique characters at will that design makes a bit more sense. The story follows Claire and Barry as they investigate yet another mysterious island, but what I think made this stand out far above its predecessor was that it simply felt... better. The combat feels good and because there's less of a focus on an ensemble and more attention is paid to its characters, the story feels more compelling.
I was going to skip this game as it seemed like a multiplayer only thing, but a friend convinced me to try it because it had a single-player campaign and I kind of regret listening to him. It's just not a good single-player game. Maybe this game was fun in multiplayer, in its heyday, but playing through the single-player mode in the year of our lord 2024 was simply a bad time. You don't need to play this game.
I need to preface this by saying I played this in VR, but this might be my favorite game in the series. It shifts the series to a first-person perspective and introduces a new protagonist. The structure of the game hearkens back to the first game, with a large house and surrounding area you navigate while managing keys and obtuse puzzles. There's also a sort of pursuer enemy in the form of Jack or Marguerite who'll make navigating certain areas stressful. This game is a throwback to the series's roots while taking things in a new direction away from the convoluted melodrama of RE6. It's an excellent entry and playing it in VR only enhanced the experience.
This is the second major Resident Evil remake, and it only took close to twenty years for them to get to it. This is, as the title would imply, a remake of RE2 that takes that game into the modern era. It has a standard third person camera and improved mechanics while still recreating most of the locations and events of the original game. It may not have the zapping mechanic or the unique A/B campaigns of the original, but it adds a pursuer enemy in the form of Mr. X who adds tension to the exploration of familiar areas in a similar way to Crimson Heads from the first REmake. I've said this a few times by now but this might, also, be my favorite in the series.
Much like the RE2make, this takes RE3 and translates it for modern consoles for a modern audience. Nemesis
feels like Mr. X, which brings things full circle in a way as the
original Nemesis felt like the blueprint for this type of character, and
he makes for a good recurring villain. The game plays very similarly to the RE2make, but much like the original RE3 when compared to RE2, there's just less meat on this bone. It manages to make the most of that by essentially becoming a straightforward action game, but it's hard to not compare it to its predecessor. Still, it's a great game and a solid remake.
A followup to RE7, this continues Ethan's story as he arrives to a village that wants him dead. He navigates a castle with its own pursuers in the form of Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, and he deals with a shady shopkeeper who seems to follow him around. This game was also excellent, and in many ways this feels like a modern take on Resident Evil 4.
Quite literally, this was a modern take on Resident Evil 4. Much like the other REmakes, this takes the bones of the original game and adapts it to play like a modern shooter. Some of the sillier edges of the original game have been sanded off and it's overall a more rational adventure. Mechanically, Leon has a parry he can use to block attacks, and between that, the dodge, and every other tool at your disposal this is the most satisfying game in the series to play. You'll have to take my word for it, but the combat feels incredible.
As the title might imply, this is a relatively short affair that in some ways feels inspired by P.T. A return for the series after years of being absent, this game follows a teenager as she investigates the disappearance of one of her friends in an abandoned apartment building. She navigates its mazelike structure while avoiding a freaky cherry blossom enemy, and even enters into the Otherworld by the end. It doesn't have any combat and instead opts for a few chase sequences that reminded me of Shattered Memories. It may not be located within the town of Silent Hill, but this is a solid enough entry for the series and, as it's free on PS5, is worth giving a shot.
The last game on my journey, this was a remake of Silent Hill 2 that felt very reminiscent of the latter REmakes. It takes the original Silent Hill and and makes it play like a modern game with a standard third-person camera and updated UI. Most of the original game is still here, with dialogue largely being unchanged and major locations and events being the same, but certain specifics have been changed. These changes lead to easter eggs for fans of the original, and in many ways this game feels like it was designed for those fans of the existing game, rather than a game wholly made for newcomers. It's an excellent entry and a solid remake, even if I'd still recommend seeking out and playing the original.
Phew. That was a lot. I know there are some games I missed (Resident Evil Resistance and RE:Verse, to name two) but I tried to be thorough and I think I succeeded at that.
I feel like this is the place where I should have some great insight to share about my journey, but what I'm largely feeling right now is relief. I absolutely loved going through these franchises and I played some truly incredible games, but this has kind of dominated the past year or two of my free time and I'm a bit glad to be done with it.
I, like everyone else, have certain blindspots when it comes to the media I consume and a large reason I undertook this endeavor was to try to take out two birds with one stone. I'd never touched either of these series before 2022 and now, two whole years later, I've seen (basically) everything each has to offer. It feels good to have accomplished something like this, as trivial as it may seem.
I still plan to play horror games and I'll probably write about a lot of the stuff I play, but, as for what's next for me and this blog, I'll let Jerma answer that.
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